


Neither Man Nor Beast

by canis_m



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because of Reasons, Cave makeouts, Centaurs, Dream Logic, Fairy Tale Logic, First Kiss, Graves is a sexy centaur, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Interspecies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 05:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: A mysterious encounter in Central Park changes everything for Credence.





	Neither Man Nor Beast

Credence walked behind the others, head down. His shoulders pulled against the pain that striped his back. The belt again, last night. A dozen lashes. He'd slept only a little, shallowly, then woken early in a feverish haze. 

Ma and Chastity didn't turn to look at him. Now and then Modesty glanced back, worrying her bottom lip, but she didn't lag to walk with him, or try to reach for his hand. Not with Ma's eye on her, too.

November wind sliced down 7th Avenue, cutting through Credence's jacket, stinging his ears. It tugged his fistful of leaflets, threatening. Credence wished distantly that he might scatter them, or scatter himself, to slip thinly into gutters and alleys, to lie prone and be trodden unnoticed underfoot.

Outside Carnegie Hall he parted ways from the others. They were to meet back in an hour. Credence wandered for a while without purpose or direction, then looked up to find himself at the edge of Central Park, near the Artisans' Gate.

Trees spread before him, dulled and half-bare with late autumn. The wind harried dead leaves along West Drive and the flanking path. Credence followed their aimless trail into the park. When the path curved away from the drive, into a stand of trees that grew strangely thick and tangled, he followed that, too. The throbbing of his back dimmed as the woods enclosed him. His sense of the city behind him faded, draining like blood from the head, until it seemed very far away.

He wandered among the trees: oak, ash, wizened shrubs with names unknown to him. The pavement ended, but the path crept crookedly on. Glints of silver showed now and then through the trees: the surface of a nearby pond. Dried leaves rattled on branches and crunched underfoot. No birds called, no small creatures crept through the underbrush. There were no sounds except those of his making.

He felt entirely alone, until a bend in the path brought him face to face with a man.

Credence shied like a startled calf. The man towered over him. A shock of dark hair fell across his thick brows. His eyes caught Credence and pinned him, intent. He had the kind of gaze it was difficult to meet for more than an instant, even had he not stood a head taller than Credence and more. 

Then he stepped forward, out of the brush, on burnished hooves, and Credence saw that he wasn't a man at all.

Horse hide gleamed from his waist down, a bay so dark it was nearly black. His lower body was strapping, deep-chested, like the police horses that patrolled the Manhattan streets with stern officers on their backs. Officers that never spared a glance for Credence, or paused to ask him _son, are you all right?_

A satchel hung from his human shoulders to rest where skin met hide. Beneath that he wore a black cloak, and nothing else. No sign of a shirt under the cloak.

He stood with hooves planted, blocking Credence's path. 

Credence backed away stumbling. Leaflets scattered as he lost his footing on a fallen branch. He craned his neck around wildly, but behind him there was no sign of the paved path, of the road, of any other living soul. Heart pounding, he turned back to the centaur, whose stare on him remained fixed.

The centaur paced toward Credence, closing the space between them. Leaflets blustered around his fetlocks, strewn by fits of wind.

"You carry darkness in you," he said. The voice was hair-raising, deep with reproach. Credence flushed and shrank.

"I don't," he whispered. "I'm not--"

The centaur's eyes narrowed. He leaned over Credence, frowning close to Credence's hair. His nostrils twitched. 

"Why do I smell blood?" 

Credence flinched. In his fright he'd forgotten his wounds; pain returned now with a vengeful burn.

The centaur's brow darkened. "Turn," he said curtly. He didn't wait for Credence to obey, merely seized him at the juncture of neck and shoulder to manhandle him around. Credence offered no resistance. The centaur's grip held animal strength, casually contained. 

He helped Credence out of coat and vest with confusing care, then pulled up Credence's shirt to expose the undershirt beneath. Through the fabric his fingers touched the burning marks on Credence's back. Credence arched away and whimpered. 

"Soaked through," the centaur muttered. "Who treats you like this?"

To answer with anything but the truth seemed impossible. "M-my Ma."

"No mother fit to be called one would beat her child bloody." A rustle of cloth: the centaur had drawn a small container from his satchel. He peeled the thin cotton of Credence's undershirt away from the wounds, quickly, so as not to prolong pain. 

Credence flinched. "'M not really hers."

"Good," grunted the centaur. "Then you can be someone else's."

Startled, Credence peered back over his shoulder, but the centaur's eyes were on his work: spreading salve over the marks of the lash. The salve tingled, but didn't sting. Cool herbal scent bloomed in the air. For a moment Credence forgot the cold, the fearfulness of being touched. He slumped, head and arms hanging limply, as the pain began to ease. 

When it was done the broad hands smoothed his shoulders, feeling the angles of the bones. Then the centaur tucked in Credence's shirt and handed back his jacket and vest.

Credence dressed himself with more ease than he had that morning. He turned to face the centaur, thanks weighing dumbly on his tongue. The centaur was frowning.

"The woman who did this," he said. "She means to burn you."

Credence stared at him without understanding, and then cold dread clutched his gut. In his mind's eye Ma's stony face hardened, condemning. To consort with an unnatural creature smacked of witchcraft--of course he would be punished. Had she sent him to the woods to test him, only to make a pyre of them when he failed? 

"How do you know?" he stammered.

"I saw it. When I touched your wounds, I saw."

And Credence knew, without knowing how he knew, that the centaur wasn't lying--that he possessed some power of sight beyond what eyes alone could see. They stared at one another. An acrid scent uncurled through the air, and tatters of gray smoke with it. The centaur's head jerked. His nostrils flared again. 

"You see?" He gestured. Credence turned, bewildered, to see flares of bright orange-red licking among the distant trees. The smell of smoke thickened. The centaur grasped his arm. "Quickly, now. Come with me."

"But--"

When Credence made as if to grope for his scattered leaflets, the centaur tugged him hard. "Leave them." 

Without waiting for an answer he grabbed Credence under both arms and swung him--as if Credence weighed no more than a child--onto his broad horse's back. Credence flailed for balance, clinging to the cloth strap of the satchel. Then his thighs clamped, reflexive, around the warm-barreled body beneath him. 

The centaur turned his head. "Have you ever ridden? On anything?"

"No, sir." 

A huff. "Well, hold on," the centaur said, and broke into a run.

If Credence expected to pitch face first to the ground, he was soon disabused of the idea. The centaur's motion was loping, smooth as a running stream. His forelegs stretched, muscles rippling as he extended his stride. Branches whipped past them, a blur of uncertain leaves, as momentum swept the taint of smoke from the air. The headwind poured clear and cold over them. Credence clung on, and the woods passed around them like a darkening dream.

There seemed to be no end to the trees. At their current pace, they should've reached the edge of the park--should've come to it in no time. Credence felt no surprise when it failed to appear. He wondered whether they were still in New York, or in the world Credence knew at all.

*

They traveled upslope into rising hills. Oak and ash gave way to conifers--hemlock and pine--as stony outcrops reared up from the ground. Credence had never seen a wood so wild, except in pictures. The scent of evergreens grew heady. An unfrozen waterfall soughed somewhere near, then faded to a white hiss.

In the midst of a pine grove the centaur pulled up short. Credence peered about them. The pines spread soft green boughs in all directions, without intrusion from other trees. Their shed needles carpeted the ground. Above the canopy, gray clouds hung heavy, redolent with hints of snow.

"Are we...still in the park?" asked Credence.

"Not for a while now. All woods are one wood, if you know the way through."

"Where does the way lead?"

"Somewhere safe," the centaur said, and then he halted altogether. With no more warning than that, another centaur appeared, emerging from the trees: a female, palomino below with brown skin above. A scarf wrapped her hair in a lofty head-dress, and an elegant jacket covered her human half. She leveled a stare at the two of them.

"Either you've grown a second head," she said, addressing Credence's rescuer, "or that's a human on your back."

The bay centaur stood his ground. "He was in danger, Seraphina."

"Aren't we all. And we'll be in more of it with him here. You know the law, Graves. Better than most, or so I'd thought."

"The law allows for taking a human thrall when a life-debt is owed. This one owes me."

"A servant. Really?" For the first time the lady centaur looked at Credence as if he were a fellow being, and not a sack of unsavory origin plastered to her friend's back. "You, boy. Do you acknowledge this centaur as your master?"

"Um," said Credence. He looked to his rescuer, whose eye flashed back at him in warning. Warning what? To play along? But he didn't have to play, not really. If between the two of them one was the master, Credence felt sure it wasn't himself. "Yes?"

The lady centaur looked unimpressed. "If you're taking that line," she said to Graves--Graves, that was his name--"you might consider making him walk." 

"He's injured," said Graves. Credence curled his fingers more tightly around the strap of the sash. "Shouldn't be on his feet."

Shaking her head, the lady centaur stepped aside to let them pass. "He shouldn't be _here,_ " she said. "But I'll leave you to conclude that for yourself." Her flaxen tail flicked, dismissive, as she vanished among the pines.

Graves set off again at a walk. The back of his head conveyed nothing of his mood. "Is she your friend?" Credence asked, after a hesitation.

"She's the herd leader. Thinks she's looking out for our best interests. Humans are trouble, she's not wrong about that."

"Am I really your servant?"

The scoff was audible. "Don't be dim." 

"You did save me," said Credence. A part of him--some wistful, cringing instinct--wanted to say he didn't mind. That he would serve, if service was permitted. If nothing else, he thought the centaur's yoke would be easy. He would spare Credence the lash. "If I'm not your servant, what will I be?"

A sheer rock face rose before them. Graves picked his way around the base of it, then turned sharply left. Just when Credence thought they would collide with solid stone, the rock parted. The gap allowed the passage of a horse and rider, if only just. The tunnel curved, cutting short the twilight from outside, and led them into the dark. 

"My guest," Graves said. 

For moments there was only darkness, and cool, dank air. The clip of hooves on stone. Then a light flared, and Credence blinked at the space that opened around them, lit by the torch in Graves' hand.

They stood in a small, roundish cave. Recessed ledges lined the walls, laden with strange objects: brass globes and astrolabes, hide pouches, vessels of wood and clay, bundles of dried herbs. A bow and quiver hung from the wall near the entry passage. The back wall held an alcove carpeted with furs, and a raised open hearth stood in the heart of the chamber. There was nothing resembling a stool, couch, or chair.

The shelves were orderly, their contents arranged with care. Credence peered at them, cautious not to touch, while Graves laid a fire in the hearth. As the flames grew, Graves fed them herbs from a bowl, releasing the clean scent of sage. Firelight softened the stone starkness of walls and ceiling, spreading warmth from the center of the cave. 

When the cold had eased, the centaur shed his cloak and hung it. His bare torso gleamed, as dense with muscle as his animal body. Without the cloak, the continuity between the two parts of him seemed plainer, palpable, as if he weren't half one creature and half another, but one inarguable whole. 

He turned his eyes on Credence, who quickly looked down at his shoes. The fire crackled.

"Show me your wounds again," Graves said.

Credence hesitated, then removed his clothing above the belt. Despite the protection of the cave, he felt his nakedness more keenly than he had in the park, and hunched against it, huddling toward the fire. Graves paced around the hearth to stand behind him. He made a troubled sound and began to reapply the herbal salve. 

His hands, thought Credence, were terribly kind. 

"Some of these may scar," said Graves. Credence only nodded: it wouldn't be the first time. The gentle hands continued their gentle dabbing, leaving cool smears of wet across Credence's skin. Lulled in spite of himself, Credence let his head bob low.

"I never knew there were centaurs in Central Park," he mumbled, above the crackle of the fire.

"It's not our usual turf."

"Mine either."

Graves put the salve away. He slung the satchel on the wall beside his cloak. Returning to the fireside, he caught Credence's eye. "Had you ever seen one of my kind before?"

Credence shook his head.

One rakish eyebrow rose. "Like what you see?"

The question took Credence aback--but he did like it. More than he should. He looked away. "You're, you're very handsome--"

Graves hawked a low laugh. He stepped closer to Credence, tail flicking. His bulk seemed overwhelming in the closed space of the cave. "A handsome beast."

"No," said Credence, backing in confusion, until he stopped with shoulders flush to the rough wall. One of the stone ledges spread behind him. "Not a beast."

"But not a man."

Credence's pulse skittered. The hair rose on the backs of his arms. It felt like fear--it might've been fear. He almost wished it were. The air in the cave seemed too scarce to breathe. 

He looked up at Graves, who looked down in return. The sardonic glint had faded from the centaur's eyes. His hand lifted. 

"You're a spooky little thing," he murmured. The pad of his palm met Credence's cheek. "Pale as a ghost. Don't weigh much more than one."

Dry-mouthed, Credence asked, "Have you given many rides to ghosts?" 

Graves shook his head. "Not to humans, either." His thumb brushed Credence's ear. "I saw you, you know. Saw the two of us together. You on my back. It's why I came looking." He smiled a little, not quite ruefully, and Credence's heart stopped. 

"You...you came to find me?"

"I didn't know it'd be today." His fingers teased Credence's hair. "And my vision didn't tell me your name." When Credence managed to give it, he said, "You're safe here, Credence. I want you to understand that."

Shadows and firelight rippled on the walls of the cave. Credence felt himself swaying into them, into the spaces between their undulations. To feel safe among them might be possible, he thought, if he were allowed to stay. He nodded.

"You don't," said Graves, leaning toward him. "Not yet. But you will." 

With a brush of one hand he cleared the ledge behind Credence, pushing sheaves of dried herbs aside. In another smooth motion he lifted Credence to perch on the bared shelf. Cold stone met Credence's backside. When he was settled, Graves' hands dropped to his waist.

"Sorry." Graves spoke in a murmur. "Closest thing I have to a chair."

He didn't take his hands off Credence. He stood there, waiting, the pupils of his deep brown eyes blown dark.

Credence's hands lifted of their own accord. They came to rest on Graves' skin, on the broad span of his chest. The contact warmed his palms as if he were holding them above the hearth fire. In that moment the touch didn't feel like sin, any more than reaching to stroke the neck of a carriage horse would. 

Graves stood close, the join of hide and skin below his navel framed between Credence's knees. He could be closer, though, Credence thought. Close enough for them to feel the motion of each other's exhalations. Enough for both of them to feel the wild, shameful throb rising below Credence's belt.

The thought of the belt almost cowed him. Then Graves said, "You're bolder than I thought," warmly, and Credence flushed and kept his hands where they were. He let his legs splay apart a little wider. They'd been around Graves already, after all, if with less prurience than this.

The ledge's height shortened the distance between them. Graves leaned until their foreheads bumped. His breath fell on Credence's lips. Credence felt dizzied, struck to the head. Verses tolled in his skull: _Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death._ But if neither man nor beast, what then? Exodus had nothing to say about it, Leviticus no stones to cast. 

It was Credence who tipped his chin to bring their lips together. Soft at first, only soft, then hot and wet. A warm tongue slipped just inside his mouth, coaxing it open. It felt strange, and then it felt impossibly good. He'd never done this before, not with anyone. It seemed fitting to do it first with what his Ma would call an unholy abomination.

They didn't stop at one, or two, and then Credence lost track. Graves' hands slid down and up his sides, still gentle, staying clear of the wounds on his back. Then he pressed closer, spreading Credence's legs with the girth of his deep stallion's chest. Credence clung to his neck to hold him, to keep him from changing his mind and pulling away. Graves gave a low sound, not quite a laugh, a sound of pure surprised pleasure, and kissed him deep. The throb between Credence's legs made him squirm on the ledge. 

When they broke apart long enough for speaking, Credence was breathless. "Is this forbidden?" he asked. "For your people, too?"

Graves didn't stop nuzzling him. "Of course it is," he murmured, in the same tone as _don't be dim._

Of course it was. When Credence made a pained noise, Graves put a steadying hand on his nape. 

"Don't let the law stop you from doing what's right," he said. "I say that as the herd sheriff."

Credence studied his mouth, concerned with the shape of it as much as the words, with how soon it might return to his own. "Is this right?" 

Graves' hands cupped Credence's face. He held it as if he held something precious, something whose value a benighted world had yet to see. "I'd say so," he said, and kissed Credence again.

*

A log on the fire jolted, scattering sparks.

Credence jerked his chin. Something warm touched his shoulder, and something pointy splayed hard-edged across his chest. 

"Hey, sleepyhead." 

His eyes flew open. Mr. Scamander's book flopped to his lap, still open to the entry that read _Centaur, M.O.M. Classification XXXX._ The warmth on his shoulder was Percy's hand, withdrawing now, as Credence squinted and straggled upright.

Percy was half-sitting, half-leaning on the cushioned arm of the chair, already dressed for dinner. Behind him the fireplace flickered merrily. His collar pins glinted warmly in its light.

"Sorry to wake you," he said, reaching to smooth the muss from Credence's hair. "Party starts at Chez Goldstein in half an hour."

Time enough to spruce up, as Percy would say. Even in his stupor Credence had the grace to mumble thanks. He scrubbed his eyes, then righted the fallen book. At least he hadn't crumpled any pages. It was a first edition: he didn't want to mangle it, though Mr. Scamander would probably give him another if he did.

The open page displayed an illustration of a centaur. It was a little too Leyendecker for comfort, what with the chiseled jaw and hindquarters, to say nothing of its habit of cocking one dark eyebrow when you tried to turn the page. An image like that could lead good Christian boys astray. From a picture of a satyr you might expect it, but a centaur? 

Credence glanced up at Percy, who looked blandly inquiring, innocent of outlandish dreams. With effort Credence managed not to peer at his backside for signs of a tail. 

"Are there centaurs in North America?" he asked instead.

"I've heard rumors of a herd in Canada. Can't vouch for their veracity." Percy stood, then nodded at the copy of _Fantastic Beasts_. "Why not ask the expert? It's his book launch."

The centaur on the page was still waggling his brows. Credence shut the book and set it firmly aside. 

"Maybe I will," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> :3 You can find me at [unicornmagic.tumblr.com](unicornmagic.tumblr.com)


End file.
